But that answer to some just wasn’t good enough, after dodging the question, and going round in circles, I finally had to admit it was built by SEAT, and part of the VW Group. SEAT have always tried to use Spanish place names to call their cars, such as: Ibiza, Malaga, Marbella, Alhambra, Córdoba, Toledo, and some more obscure ones such as Leon, Arona and Altea.
But Formentor is a very pretty place in Majorca, and the Formentor is a very pretty car, with some bold and striking lines, the pressing of the metal is really clever engineering with the body panels having razor sharp creases.
The car I had on test from SEAT UK press office, sorry, CUPRA UK, was a 1.4 petrol plug-in Hybrid that produces 245ps (combined output, petrol engine and electric motors). It goes from 0-62mph (100kph) in 7-seconds, and boasts a top speed of 130mph. It is coupled to a very smooth 6-speed automatic gearbox.
You can charge the battery either from home using a standard household plug, or take it to a public ChargePoint. I just charged it from home, and like all other full electric, or plug-ins, it seemed to take forever to do so. It took nearly five hours to go from a range of zero miles to 21 miles. It’s meant to be able to go for 34 miles when fully topped-up. Using a swanky 3.6KW ChargePoint it takes about three hours to “electrically fill”. However, it begs the question, “3 hours to get 34 miles, is it worth it?”. When it was completely out of battery power and solely relied on petrol power, the economical 1.4-litre engine achieved just over 50mpg (4.704l/100kph).
The interior is quite exquisite with some really nice touches, with its black nappy leather heated bucket seats with copper stitching on the VZ2 test car. The whole of the interior looks and feels like real quality, a great place to sit for a long journey.
It has a large (12-inch) screen in the centre of the dashboard and a 10.5-invh Digital Cockpit in front of the driver. The infotainment system is really easy to use, and very intuitive, and much improved on some previous efforts by VW Group, I think they have learned by their mistakes.
There is a great long list of standard equipment on the Formentor, too many to list. The UK OTR price of the test car was £41,115, and does sound a hefty price to pay, but when you look at the complete package, all the nice features you get, then it begins to look reasonable value.
The Cupra Formentor is certainly a striking looking five-door hatch, with some very distinctive lines, that stand out in a crowd. The interior is stunning, and SEAT, sorry, CUPRA have gone over and beyond what would have been expected in this type of car, from the Spanish manufacturer, so well done for a brave effort.
